2002-01-04 - 1:09 p.m.

It's good to be back in New York, and it was great to have a couple of friends around in the city to help ease me back in. New Year's was fun, but I have to correct something that someone wrote in her diary: that mix CD (not tape) opened with the Beastie Boys f/Biz Markie version of "Benny and the Jets," not the Reggie Dwight original. And the song that followed was Bel Biv Devoe's classic 1990 bap-b-b-bap capital-J Jam "Poison." Yes it was. So that's just a taste of what you missed out on. In the words of one of the BBD boys, "Never trust a big butt with a smile."

You know before New Year's Eve I'd never been properly wine drunk? Man. Now I know the score. I drank about a bottle and a half of champagne, and that was after midnight. Eliza's sis and me trading belts of bubbly on the dancefloor. (Eliza, thanks for the calzones earlier in the night! Total scrump.) Everyone says I had the Wild Eyes by the end of the night, and I agree. I felt as crazy as I must have looked.

Other vacation highlights:

1. The length. Thanks to saved-up vacay days and the solicitous Tuesday position of the birth of Big Baby Jesus, I snagged about a week and a half of time off total. Like I'm in college or something.

2. Making a new movie in Colin's loft where I ad-libbed a simile that involved a fiddler crab.

3. A trip out to Ted's parents' place in St. Clare.

4. Greektown Casino with the folks. I came back $60 richer! Roulette remains my sugar daddy. My mom actually walked off with $80. My winnings, however, were rather cosmically offset by a subsequent loss of an almost brand new Metrocard (MSRP: $63) upon returning to New York. Ah, I figure I got at least $3 worth of subway travel out of it, though. You do the math.

5. Road trip! Screw a 6:30am flight on Spirit Airlines, I figured. Joe, Davidde, Larry and I took Larry's Moms's Astro van and a videotape containing every episode of the Ben Stiller Show across these great states to the East Coast. I made the drive through Manhattan, my first time doing that for real (once I did it at 4:30am, which is like cleaning up at the Olympics during a Cold War strike year). And on the West Side Highway, Meatpacking District, who did I spy in the Lincoln next to me but former NYC mayor Ed Koch? Nice.

6. No work January 2. God I had fun hanging out by myself. The park, completely empty on a gorgeous clear day. Snow in the creek and a new pond I'd never seen before, with gossamer swirling ice patterns. The most beautiful train ride I've ever taken -- the Q across the Manhattan Bridge. A radiant new mom reading a magazine (quite possibly produced in this building) called Loving Your Baby. An old Jamaican woman in colorful layers of fabric calmly, plaintively singing. A sports announcer-style train conducter. Fellowship of the Rings, best movie I've seen this year.

Good stuff all. New Year's rez: Write more. More physical activity. Avoid flaky girls. So it is written.